An Inevitable Outcome
by Grav
Summary: Well, they are married after all. This sort of thing was really to be expected.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

It's very late when he comes home, long after dinner and though he hopes she might have waited up for him, stitching by the hearth, he is not really expecting it. Indeed, the lamps are all turned down and the fire is already banked. Their small set of rooms is so familiar that he barely needs light to navigate them. He can see the dark shape of her in bed, so he retreats to his room to dress for bed as quietly as he can.

It's mildly inconvenient, at times, to keep his office and her receiving room in the centre of the Mountain, and their quarters so close to the edge. In the half-decade since they wed, they have discussed moving to a suite that better suits their needs, but every time they get serious about it, he remembers how she likes the windows and she remembers how he likes the privacy. Neither of them were precisely born to the stations they hold, and they both appreciate having a space in which they do not have to be Prince and Lady of the Mountain. That's worth the walk, and the occasional missed evening meal. Sigrid's only concern is the added stress to the royal guard, having to man posts so isolated, but the Mountain is at peace, and they have assured her they do not mind.

Fili strips to his linen shirt and leggings, and takes his time combing out his beard. The lateness of his return is the result of a particularly knotty trade agreement with the Mirkwood elves, and even with Kili to serve as emissary, taking most of the pressure of him, Fili is still keyed up about it. There's no point in going to bed and flailing around. If nothing else, he'd wake his wife, and he doesn't want to do that. Thus, it's not until he crawls under the covers, close enough now that he can see Sigrid better despite the dark, that he realizes she is not asleep.

"Sigrid?" he asks. "Are you awake?"

"Yes," she says. Her voice is very thin.

"Are you ill?" He half rises in concern. She still has not turned to look at him.

"No, only tired," she replies. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right, love," he tells her. "It's very late."

He imagines that will be the end of it, except now her shoulders are shaking, and she is holding her breath like she is trying not to cry. He throws the blankets off of them entirely, and turns up the wick on the bedside lamp.

"Sigrid!"

She's still in her day-dress, one of the ones she wears to work in the stillroom. Her hair is coming out of its braids, and her face is tear-streaked, though she is not outwardly crying now. He pulls her into his arms and she stills for a moment.

"Tell me," he says.

"I - " It sticks in her throat the first time, and she coughs. "I'm with child."

For a breath, he is stunned into silence. Then, he can't help it: he lets out a joyous whoop at the news, and bends his head to kiss her. They've been married almost five years now, and while that's not long for a dwarf, it's long for a human. It's not like they haven't taken plenty of opportunities. It's a few moments before he realizes that she is not responding to the kiss, as stiff in his arms as though she were frozen there.

"Sigrid, I don't understand," he says. "These are glad tidings, are they not?"

At this, she truly does cry. Fili is beginning to panic, though he doesn't know the why of it yet. Sigrid is no longer shy of her emotions around him, but she has never been this...vulnerable, and he can't say that he is enjoying it.

"Fili," she says at last. "This is how my mother died. It was Tilda, and she was small. Fili, she was so small."

Understanding, and horror, dawn on him. He tightens his grip on her shoulders.

"I've seen the dwarf babes. I've held them in my arms," she continues. "Fili, their heads. They're bigger than any human child's. What if I can't - "

He lifts her over top of him, twisting, to set her on her feet beside the bed. She's so light in his hands, and usually that is one of the things he loves about her. Now, it frightens him as it does her, because she is right: the slightness of her build that so contrasts with his might be a danger, and until this moment, he had not considered it. He sits up, and takes her hands.

"We'll go see Oin, right now," he says, kissing her fingers. "And I swear it, if I have to send a raven to every elf in Middle Earth, if I have to go to their halls and beg them for their aid in person, I will do it. Do you hear me?"

She nods. There are tearstains on her cheeks, and her braids are loose around her face, but her expression is determined. He wants to take her in his arms and never let her go.

"Get your coat, my love," he says instead.

She kisses him, and goes to fetch it from her dressing room. He takes a deep breath, not that it does much to calm the forge hammer that is his pounding heart, and goes to the door. The guard outside is very surprised to see him; it is the first time in all the nights Fili has lived here with Sigrid that he has come out of his room before morning.

"My prince?" the guard asks, concerned.

"Please go and wake Master Oin," Fili orders, his voice as level as he can make it. "Pray, tell him it is not an emergency, but that myself and the Lady Sigrid require him in his workroom immediately."

It will take longer for Oin to muster himself this way, but Fili knows better than to wake the old dwarrow in his bedchamber.

"At once, my prince," the guard says, and lays his shield down so that he can take the twisting corridors at a run. It's an urgency Fili understands, and the guard doesn't even know the problem yet.

When he turns, Sigrid is there. She's wrapped in a fine blue coat and has tied back her hair in simple coils. She holds his coat out to him, and he puts it on as he searches for the sturdy shoes he wears when his boots are not required. Once they're both decent, he takes her hand in his, and leads her out into the corridor.

They walk sedately, but with purpose. There's no point in rushing, as it will take Oin some time to reach their meeting point, and Fili has no desire to be seen dashing through the Mountain by a late-awake gossip monger, and he doubts Sigrid does either. They do not speak, but Sigrid's hold on his hand is tight, and he squeezes back from time to time.

The lamps are lit in Oin's workroom when they reach it, and Fili can hear the hiss of water sizzling off the side of a hastily filled kettle. He holds the door for Sigrid, and then follows her inside.

* * *

"Princeling, my lady," Oin says, nodding to each of them in turn as they sit.

He's never been the sort to let Fili forget that, once upon a time, he was a scrappy badger with somewhat limited common sense. It's something Fili is grateful for, particularly when he feels the pressures of the Mountain bearing down on him. He's also glad that Oin is too practical waste time remonstrating them for waking him: he knows there must be a reason.

"Out with it, then," Oin says, slightly too loud as always, and Fili hesitates, looking sideways at his wife.

Sigrid makes a vague gesture with her hands, and he nods. She'd have to shout to get Oin to hear her, and Fili understands that that would be better avoided. As quickly as he can, he signs the details to Oin, who lights up at the news, as Fili had known he would, and then quickly becomes solemn when Fili explains the issues they fear.

When they are done, Oin gets up and comes around the table to sit next to Sigrid on the bench. This way, she can speak directly into his ear.

"My lady," he starts, and then remembers not to yell at her. "I apologize, but I must ask you some direct questions about your mother."

Sigrid nods, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Fili wraps his arms around her waist.

"When she died, did the midwives have any ideas as to the cause?" he asks.

"Sh-she," Sigrid stutters, and then takes a breath. "She seemed fine, at first. I remember that, because she nursed Tilda. They said it would help stop the bleeding."

Oin nods, and the kettle begins to whistle. Fili presses a kiss beneath Sigrid's ear, and get up to see to the tea.

"There was a lot of blood, the midwife said, but not so much that they were worried," Sigrid continues. "But then the next morning, her fever was so high. She could barely hold Tilda, and couldn't nurse her at all. Da was out on the barge, because the midwife said it was safe. I held Tilda, but I couldn't feed her, so she just wailed and wailed, and Mama cried because she was so ill."

Fili returns to the table with three cups, even though he is sure no one is actually interested in the tea. He leaves his on the table, in favour of putting his arms around is wife again. She leans back against him, and he sighs into her hair.

"I couldn't leave the house because there was no one to mind Tilda and Bain," Sigrid continues. "No one came, even though there must have been quite the racket. When Da finally came home, I thought he would fix everything, but even though he went for the midwife again, there was nothing to be done."

His brave girl is still not crying, but Fili rather thinks he might. They've not spoken much of their deceased parents, but it hurts him to imagine her, not more than eight years old, stuck in the house with an ailing Ma and two siblings she wasn't yet old enough to care for.

"She d-died two days later," Sigrid chokes out. Fili kisses the back of her head, and she moves further into the circle of his arms.

Oin takes her chin gently in his old hands, and makes her look directly at him.

"Lass," he says, his voice softer than Fili has heard it in years. "I can only imagine what that was like, to lose you mam so young, and have to take charge as you did."

"You lost a Mountain," Sigrid reminds him.

"Aye," he says, "but I did not lose as much as others did. I still had my whole family, and most of our trade was outside Erebor. Others were much worse off."

He shudders briefly at the memory, and releases his hold on Sigrid's face. She doesn't look back down.

"Lass, this is good news," Oin says, coming out of his memories. "Hard as that is to hear, I am sure. But it's true nonetheless. Your mother didn't die from bleeding, nor because your sister was too big for her to safely bear."

"She didn't?" Sigrid sounds confused.

"No, lady," Oin says. "She died of an infection. On the battlefield, wounds can take poison and carry it into the blood. The same can happen in childbirth. That's what she died of."

Sigrid says nothing, and Fili breaks his silence.

"I'm sure I understand, cousin," he says. "Won't there still be a risk?"

"There is always a risk," Oin says, eyes still on Sigrid. She straightens in Fili's arms. "But we are better equipped in Erebor than they were in Laketown."

Sigrid bristles, instinctively coming to the defense of her homeland, and Oin lays a hand upon her arm.

"Peace, lass," he says, the hint of a smile pulling at the corner of his weathered lips. "In Dale, since the rebuilding, there have been fewer deaths from childbed fever, and far fewer babes have perished in their first year. We all learn together."

"What if the baby is too big?" Sigrid asks, her voice quiet. "I'm no healer, but even I can see the difference between my hips and a dwarrowdam's."

"That is my chief concern," Oin says. He takes a long drink of his cooling tea. "If there is a danger, we can always induce labour early."

"Won't that put the child at risk?" Sigrid asks.

"It will," Oin tells her frankly. "We may have to make some hard choices, my lady, but we will make them together, and ask for help if we need it. Have you an idea of how far along you are?"

"Eight weeks," Sigrid says softly.

Fili does the tally automatically. Eight weeks ago, he left for the Iron Hills for a month and a half. He remembers that night before his departure with astonishing clarity.

"I'm sorry, Fili," she says, turning. "I wanted to be sure. And I was afraid."

She's carried this alone, and never let him see her fear. Or maybe he, preoccupied with the elves since his return, had simply failed to see it. No more, he promises her silently. He will bear as much of this as he possibly can, to spare her and to share her worries.

"It's all right, love," he tells her, and she nestles back against his chest.

"Tomorrow I will do a proper examination," Oin says. "Do you think you'll need something to help you sleep? The teas I have won't harm the baby in any way."

"No, thank you, I'll be fine," Sigrid says.

The three of them manage to extricate themselves from the bench, leaving two untouched tea cups behind them. Fili thanks Oin, and apologizes for waking him, and then he and Sigrid set out for their suite again. The guard is back at his post when they return, and opens the door for them. He doesn't say anything, but Fili nods at him, half in thanks, and half to assure him that the situation has abated, for now.

That, of course, isn't much comfort. The wait will be next, and he's not sure how exactly they are going to manage it. Once the door is shut, Sigrid wavers on her feet as though all the strength she projected in Oin's workroom has left her at once. He peels off her coat, and carries her to bed as she kicks off her shoes. Leaving his own coat in a pile on the floor next to hers, he crawls under the coverlet with her, and pulls her back into his arms.

He's not entirely sure what he expects, another storm of weeping or perhaps quiet breathing until they fall asleep. He does not anticipate the ferocity with which she turns in his arms and presses her mouth to his.

She is trying to provoke him. He can tell that, even has his body reacts. He rolls over, pressing her between his weight and the mattress, and she goes to work on his clothes. He is trying to process too many things, too many feelings at the same time, and it takes him until they're both naked to reason it out.

She has not kissed him like this since the cave-in. He'd lost control, then, both of them so desperate for assurance of the other's well-being, and he had hurt her, even though she'd denied it afterwards. He has not allowed himself to do so again, and once he realizes what she is doing, he shifts tactics.

He slides his hands down her arms, pulling hers off his back so he can link his fingers with her own, and bring them up on either side of her face. She moves under him, trying to regain her leverage, but he is relentless in denying it. He ignores her teeth, biting at his lips, and sweeps his tongue into her mouth. She moans, and stops fighting him outright, but she knows him as well as he knows her. She turns to subtler movements and sounds, and he wants, more than anything, to give in, but he won't. He won't.

"Sigrid," he says, releasing her mouth. He looks down at her as they pant for breath. "Please."

He has not said it in their bed before, not once in five years. Usually, she is happy enough to give him what he wants without his having to ask for it. She has said it often, though, when he has pushed her to her breaking point, and all she wants is release. She knows what it means, to say it now.

She softens instantly, and he kisses her as though they are only beginning, and he is not already hard and near delirious with want of her. Lips, eyelids, brow, and then her neck, her breasts, and he does not loose his hold on her fingers. He kisses her until he trusts himself again, and when he finally pushes inside of her, it is more deliberate than ever before. She whimpers in protest, and he allows his second thrust to be harder, and his third harder still as they find their rhythm together.

It takes every bit of his control to bring her to climax before he spends himself, but it is worth it to hear her soft cry, and to feel the way she curls about him when he would have got up to get her some water. He is beginning to wish that _he_ had taken Oin up on his offer of sleeping tea, when Sigrid stirs.

"Fili?" she asks. Her voice is small, but not thin as it had been.

"Yes, love?" he replies. He has no idea what she will ask of him, but knows that he will grant it.

"I need you to pretend that I am strong," she says.

"You are strong, lass," he says, without thinking about it.

"Fili," she says, and winds her fingers into his beard, "not like that. You can't coddle me, or wrap me up and leave me in this room for the next seven months."

He'd be lying if he said the thought hadn't crossed his mind.

"I'm not sure I understand, love," he admits.

"I need you to pretend that I am strong. That I am safe," she tells him. "Because I won't be able to. And if I see that you don't..."

He tightens his arms around her as he understands.

"I can do that, my brave girl," he tells her. He is surprised to find he means it with every fibre of his being; he's not pretending at all. "I can do that for you."

They sleep then, at last, and they neither of them dream.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2  
**

Sigrid gets lost in the corridors the first time she tries to find her way to the stillrooms on her own. Dis has taken her each morning before, and Sigrid had been sure that she'd be able to tell one stone-carved passage from another, but her mother-in-law is gone to the Guildhalls in the lower city, and she is lost, not five hundred yards from her own home. She is about to go back and try again, unwilling to ask one of the guardsmen for directions, when a voice catches her attention.

"Lady Sigrid!" It's Oin's too-loud call, and so she turns with a smile on her face.

"Good Morning, Master Oin," she says, when he is close enough to hear her. She's reasonably sure he still doesn't make out the actual words, but it's fairly obvious what she's saying.

"Yes," he says, and extends his arm. "Walk an old dwarrow to his workroom, would you?"

It's that or give up, she reasons, so she takes his arm and they go down the corridor together. Oin doesn't talk as much as Dis does, and Sigrid is able to notice more about the way the walls slant, and the shape of the marks cut into the arches they pass under as they walk. Oin also walks a great deal more slowly, which probably helps as well. By the time they reach the room Oin keeps for his daily use, Sigrid has remembered where she is, and where she is heading next.

"If you want an office, you can have the one next to mine," Oin says, fumbling with his keys. He doesn't really need a workroom, but Sigrid understands that he wants a place where he can work on his own, and he's only got his brother's family underfoot at home. Sometimes Sigrid felt like she'd had the entire city of Dale.

"I don't know if I need one as yet," she says, leaning towards his trumpet. "I'm not exactly in charge of anything."

"That'll come, lass," he says. "The cooks like you. That's always a good sign."

Sigrid had been cook for a household long enough to know that that was true.

"Thank you, Master Oin," she says.

"Cousin, lass," he tells her, pointing to the beads she wears on a necklace about her neck. A proper dwarf would wear them in her beard, and this is Sigrid's compromise.

"Thank you, cousin, then," she says, and smiles. She has not yet figured out her husband, but his family is kind enough.

Oin finds the right key, and disappears into a room that smells of camphor and tobacco. Sigrid wrinkles her nose. Her office, should she get one, will be better ventilated. She turns, take a breath, and heads with determined confidence to the stillroom she'd been trying to find before.

The others greet her when she comes in, and do not remark that she is, perhaps, a bit late. She sees two in the back nudge each other and smile, and her ears colour. She knows what speculations she must inspire, what things could keep a new bride in her rooms and make her late to her post. She wishes it were true, but Fili has not pressed her for his rights in the marriage bed again, and she is not sure how to tell him that she will be braver this time.

They've begun without her, of course, but none of the big jobs. They have prepared and cut and washed what they will need for the day's work, but they have waited for her direction in how to do it. She gives it without thinking, but afterward thinks about what Oin had said about her charge of the stillrooms and her future need of an office.

She shakes her head. It is too soon, and she has much to learn. So she takes her turn at the cauldrons, hot and smelly work though it is.

* * *

Fili doesn't notice when her courses come the first time after they are married, because it is the second week and he is still doing his best not to touch her. They talk by the fire in the evenings, and if she falls asleep, puts her to bed, but otherwise he does not lay a hand upon her, and short of falling asleep on purpose, she's not sure how to make him. The second time her courses come she thinks she will have to beat him off with a stick.

Instead, she wakes one morning to cramps that are a bit more severe than usual, and an ache in her breasts that means the blood will soon follow. She winces getting up, one hand on her abdomen, and Fili turns to look at her.

"Are you all right?" he asks, concerned.

"Yes," she says. She blushes rather fiercely. "It's just my monthlies."

"You look like you've been hit in the gut with a hammer," he says.

"That has never happened to me," she admits, "but I'd imagine it's similar enough."

He comes around to her side of the bed and tries to push her back down.

"Fili, what are you doing?"

"You can't get up if you're in that much pain," he tells her. There's worry in his eyes.

"Fili, this is normal," she tells him. "Well, more or less. Sometimes it's better and sometimes it's worse, but cramps are to be expected. I can't stay in bed just because it's my courses. I'll never get anything done!"

"Dwarf women don't," he says. But he lets her sit up.

"Don't get anything done?" she asks. She can't imagine this stopping his mother.

"Don't get pain the way you do," he says.

"Oh," she says. "Well, I'm still not going to stay in bed."

"I don't like–" he starts, and she puts her hand on his arm.

"I not exactly fond of it either," she says. "But this is how it works. So let me out of bed before I hit you somewhere you won't like."

He mutters something she's pretty sure was a remark about her temperament, but he gets out of her way, so she lets it pass.

"I'll tell the kitchen to send extra tea," Fili says. Off her look, he continues, "I'll be subtle!"

"If you're subtle they'll just think..." she trails off, blushing again. Damn these hormones.

"Think what?"

"That I'm bearing you an heir," she says, very quietly.

"Not even I am that lucky, my love," he tells her. "Not to get an heir so quickly."

"It's been long enough," she says. "In Dale, they would already be whispering that there was something missing from our bed."

He takes her hands, and pulls her into a kiss, long and slow. It says everything about how much he loves having her in that bed. It almost cures her of her cramps.

"Not for a dwarf, love," he reminds her. "We tend to take our time."

She'd forgotten.

"I'm going to take a bath," she tells him.

"I'll be subtle," he promises.

She is, at least, sure that he will try.

* * *

The lady in waiting arrives just as Sigrid's skin is starting to prune. She knocks before she comes into the bath. Dwarves tend to be a bit nonchalant towards nudity amongst their own sex. It's taken a bit of getting used to, but Sigrid no longer squawks when someone walks into the room while she's bathing. It's Maris, the one Sigrid gets along best with.

"I brought you a tea that might help," she says. "I made it very weak, though, because I am not entirely sure what it will do to you."

"Thank you," Sigrid says, and sits up straight so that she can drink without spilling. It does not have the best flavour, and her reaction makes Maris laugh.

"I brought you the mint as well, for after," she says. Then she sits so that she can comb out Sigrid's hair.

None of her ladies will braid her hair for her, even though she knows they're all probably more deft at it than she is, but they do like to brush it. It's finer, they've told her, like a child's is, but much longer. They'll twist it and she can tell they imagine what it would look like, braided properly, but they always leave that part to her. She understands why, now.

"Maris," Sigrid says, once the tea is gone and she is nursing the mint. "How long do most dwarf marriages take to get children?"

"That depends, my lady," Maris says. "Take Lord Gloin, for example. He and his lady were after a child right from the start, so it only took them about a dozen years to get young Master Gimli."

Sigrid is able to hide her smile because Maris isn't looking at her. Dwarf politics are complicated, but Sigrid has been able to determine that Kili is the one all her ladies view as irredeemable and his cousin is the one they all sigh into their pillows over.

"A dozen years!" she says instead. "Is that what they expect of me?"

She'll be well past her thirtieth year, by then. It's not unheard of, but it's not precisely common for a first babe, either.

"No one really knows, in your case, my lady," Maris says, her tone very diplomatic. No one ever says that they are not entirely sure the marriage will result in children at all. It is just as well that Fili does not lack for heirs.

"Still," Sigrid tells her, "if we went even half of that in Dale, Fili would be within his rights to set me aside and find a wife as could give him children."

Maris drops the brush, and pulls Sigrid around, almost too roughly. She drops the cup into the tub.

"My lady, you must never say that." The poor dwarrowdam is clearly mortified.

"It is the custom of Men," Sigrid says. "He would have to give me a house and a stipend."

"It is not the custom of Dwarves," Maris says, rather proudly. "You will always be his wife, and he your husband."

"I'm sorry," Sigrid says. "I didn't realize it would be so awful to you."

"Is it not awful to Men?"

"It is sad," Sigrid says. "But sometimes there must be heirs."

"Heirs you have," Maris tells her. "Now get out of the water before you wilt like steamed greens."

She never mentions children again, not to Maris or Fili or anyone else. She has plenty to occupy her time. There are news skills to learn and old skills to teach, and her husband seems not to care, so long as she is happy, and she is. She does not worry about it.

Until, one day, she does.

* * *

For two weeks, Sigrid holds her secret to her heart, sure at any moment that she will crack like weathered stone. She'd had every intention of telling Fili as soon as he returned from the Iron Hills; at six weeks, with two missed courses she was sure enough, but he had plunged directly from one political mess into another, and every night returned to her worn and tired, and the words stuck in her throat when she'd tried to say them.

She does not crack. Instead, it's like water rushing over granite; the slow but steady erosion and weakening of the rock. At last, a night comes when she cannot put it off any longer. She must tell him. If they are to make hard choices, they must make them before she quickens.

Despite her resolve, her courage fails her, and rather than wait for him in her chair, where he will see her, she waits in their bed. He's later than he has been in days, and takes so long preparing for bed that her nerves nearly fail her again. She is not worried she will fall asleep – she is too frayed for that – but she does worry that she will be so worked up she will not be able to explain herself adequately to him.

So caught up in her own fears, she is completely unprepared for the joy of his reaction, and does not respond to his jubilant kiss, even though she knows she ought to. When he senses her unease, he retreats, and finally, finally, the words come pouring out of her.

Then it is a whirlwind, or rather _she_ is a whirlwind. Fili is an anchor, a rock. He keeps her steady as he steers her through the corridors, and once they reach Oin's workroom, he does not let her go. Outside of dancing, dwarves do not usually linger when it comes to physical contact in public. Greetings are boisterous, she is still not accustomed to the force with which her subjects head-butt one another, but fleeting. In private, of course, it is another matter, but now Fili keeps his arms about her, and no one says a word about it.

Oin calms them both, at least on the surface, but once Fili has taken her back to their rooms, she wavers, and when he picks her up to put her to bed, she _wants_. She's not even sure why, only that she does, and so she turns to him and does her very best to provoke his response.

What she gets is rather unexpected. He does not simply take her, though she has made the offer plain. Instead he waits, holds back. Asks. He never has before; he has not ever needed to. He wants something, and she needs him. So she gives it.

Since that first awkward month, she has known he loves her. He says it frequently, shows it in countless actions. Until tonight, she has not seen the full depth of dwarvish possession; that dark want that her father had feared, even as he signed the betrothal agreement. Thorin's had shown itself in gold. Fili's has shown in her.

She does not fear it. Rather, she welcomes it, even as he takes her. If he needs her, then she knows he spoke the truth earlier, when he promised to go for help, even to the elves. She arches underneath him, and he whispers pretty things in her ear as she comes.

She coils about him so he can't get up. She doesn't care if they're a mess or if she is thirsty. She wants him close. He doesn't try to break away.

"Fili?" she asks. Her voice is so damnably small. She does not want to be this waif, but she is still afraid.

"Yes, love?" he replies. She's not even sure what she'll ask of him, but she knows he will do his best.

"I need you to pretend that I am strong," she says. That doesn't make sense.

"You are strong, lass," he says, without thinking about it. It's flattering, but it's not true. He could break her like a twig. Any dwarf could. She is so slight, compared to them.

"Fili," she says, and winds her fingers into his beard. If she lets him, he will coddle her. He will wrap her in soft wool and hide her in the mountain. If he does that, she will die. "Not like that. You can't coddle me, or wrap me up and leave me in this room for the next seven months."

"I'm not sure I understand, love," he admits. His voice soft, like he might spook her. Maybe he will.

"I need you to pretend that I am strong. That I am safe," she tells him. She understands at last why she needs this of him. One of them must pretend, and it can't be her. "Because I won't be able to. And if I see that you don't..."

She can tell the moment he understands too, because his arms tighten around her.

"I can do that, my brave girl," he tells her. She doesn't doubt him, but she will still do her best to make sure. "I can do that for you."

In the morning, he braids a new plait into his hair, and then a matching one into hers. When she sees his hands shake, she pretends that it is only because he is tired from being up so late.

* * *

To Be Continued


	3. Chapter 3

_Note:_ I am really sorry it took so long to get back to this! I had to write a book, but now the book is done ("done"), and that means I can get back to finishing this in a timely fashion.

**Chapter 3**

Were it not for the vomit, Sigrid feels she might be managing better. Dwarves almost never get sick, and their medical knowledge tends towards wound management as a result, but this latest batch of former refugees from the Blue Mountains had apparently picked something up on their trek, because they'd no sooner been settled into their temporary quarters than Thorin had been forced to quarantine them there. The stillroom dwarrowdams are more than ready for an onslaught of poisoned cuts and amputations, but in the face of an actual sickness, their qualifications run a bit short, and Sigrid finds herself much closer to the centre of things than she usually prefers to be.

"I've only just learned to find the place!" she says to Fili one evening during the short moments between the time when they both arrive home and the time when they both collapse, exhausted, into their bed. "I shouldn't be taking charge."

"There's no one better suited than you, love," Fili tells her. "We're not used to this sort of thing."

What he doesn't say, either because he assumes she knows or because he's too tired, is that as wife of the Crown Prince, she ought to be in charge anyway, newly married and comer to her station or no. Instead he wraps his arms around her, and they manage to get a few hours of sleep together before wading back into the crisis.

It takes several weeks, and almost two dozen deaths, before Sigrid manages to get all her new subjects on the road to recovery. She is not permitted to do the actual tending herself, because they're not sure if Men can catch this illness, and in any case, she is too valuable to risk, but every dwarf who rises from a sickbed knows that it was their new Lady who had healed them. She had organized the kitchens and the healers and the guards, had made sure that families were kept together before and after they were sick, and brewed much of the healing teas and potions herself.

When they sing the twenty dead back to the stone, Sigrid stands beside her husband with tears in her eyes. The dwarves that died were mostly elderly, but their cost is felt: they had been some of those born in Erebor, who knew the Mountain before the dragon came, and who Thorin had meant to ask advice of when his own memory ran short. The dwarves mind their traditions as much as they can, but they stare at their lady as they do it. They had not known what to make of her, this Daughter of Men, come to the Mountain to marry their Prince, but they have already begun to love her.

When it is finished, Thorin clasps her shoulder and passes over a handkerchief with a sad smile.

"It was well done," he says.

After, Fili assures her that it is as much praise as he has ever given anyone.

* * *

Word of Sigrid's pregnancy will spread quickly, Fili knows. His people appear stoic and reserved, to the easy view, but there is nothing that stirs them more quickly than news of a child. News of a child from the line of Durin will be even better.

Before it can get out of control, Fili asks his mother, brother and uncle to meet for breakfast. This happens frequently enough not to raise any suspicions, though Kili grumbles at the early rising, the Elves keep him up late, and Thorin bring Balin out of habit. Sigrid is pale as the dishes are laid, but by the time Dis has waved off the servers, she seems better. Apparently morning nausea is not uncommon for human women, though Fili had been a bit alarmed by how quickly Sigrid had fled their bed that morning.

"Kili, you look awful," Thorin says, pouring himself tea and passing the pot to his sister.

"It's that blasted elf-wine," Kili replies. "You should be glad they don't make you drink it before negotiations."

"It can't be that bad, laddie," Balin says.

"It sneaks up on you," Kili says, a bit defensively.

"Aye, an entire cask at a time!" Dis says. The older dwarves cackle, and Fili isn't entirely sure how to break in and change the subject. Beside him, Sigrid coughs, and he turns, thinking she might be ill again, only to realize that she is clearing her throat.

"I'm with child," she says, her light voice cutting through the dwarvish laughter. She had to practice, Fili knows, to make herself heard in the chaos of the kitchen and the sickrooms. She's never used that voice with the family before.

Instantly, the table is silent. Balin's spoon is half-way between the jam pot and his toast. Dis stops chewing mid-mouthful. Thorin is just frozen, his hands on either side of his plate, and Kili raises his head to stare at them. Sigrid grabs his hand under the table, and Fili squeezes tightly before any of them react.

"Sigrid, that is wonderful news!" Dis exclaims, getting up from her seat to come and hug them both.

Kili thumps his brother on the shoulder, and then leans across to kiss Sigrid on the cheek. Thorin waits, and then clasps both their hands when the way is clear. Balin grinning fit to burst, makes for the door, jamless toast clutched absently in one hand.

"I'll get a raven," he says. "One clever enough to speak to your father directly."

"Lass, you don't look entirely thrilled," Dis says, once Balin is gone and they've all sat down again.

"I am," Sigrid says. Fili can see the strain in her eyes, but isn't sure anyone else would. "It's only that..."

She trails off with a glance at Thorin, and Fili completely understands her hesitancy. Oin is one thing, a trained medical professional requires all the details. Thorin is so grave and so distant sometimes, King of the Mountain, that telling him everything would be rather uncomfortable.

"Kili, come with me," Thorin says, snagging three more rashers of bacon and pulling Kili up by his shoulders.

"But – " Kili protests, and then trips over his chair as his uncle manhandles him out of it.

As the door shuts behind them, Dis pours Sigrid a cup of tea, and takes her free hand. When Fili sees their hands together, one so broad and blunt, and one so fine – though both are equally callused – he feels another wave of the panic he had felt the night before. This is what Sigrid meant. It's not just him she is narrower than. It is every dwarf.

"Oh, love," Dis says. "Is this what took your mother?"

Sigrid can only nod.

"I assume Fili has told you that we will do whatever we can?" Dis asks. "Even if it puts us into debt with those wretched leaf eaters, Thorin will have it done."

"Yes," Sigrid says. "Though I do not think it will be so bad. My sister lived, after all."

"But your mother did not," Dis says, a little taken aback.

"No," Sigrid confirms, "but so long as the heir is healthy, I understand that there might be certain difficult choices to make."

Fili grips his mug hard enough to break it, except it is thick ceramic. Dis takes a deep breath, a distant look in her eyes, and Fili knows she is remembering the hard years before he was born, when the dwarves wandered and lost more of their kin than they gained. The dwarf princess takes Sigrid's other hand.

"Our years of difficult choices are behind us, do you understand me?" she says. "Your people and mine both. We have suffered and known loss, but the dragon is dead and we will suffer no more. If our healers and the healers of Dale have not the art to help us, then we will find someone who can."

Sigrid is clearly taken aback by her mother-in-law's vehemence, and says nothing. Fili puts a hand on her shoulder, and kisses her cheek lightly. She leans into him.

"I told you, love," he reminds her.

"I know," she says. "I suppose sometimes I forget what we are."

"I do too, lass," Dis tells her. "I'll wake up and wonder where I am because the bed is too comfortable, and because my room is almost as big as the house we lived in before the lads were born and Thorin had his halls in Ered Luin."

She releases Sigrid's hands, and leans forward to kiss the top of her head, something she can only do when Sigrid is sitting down. Then she takes her own seat again, and they eat while discussing the best way to tell everyone in the mountain.

"Not that they won't all know it by lunch, even if we said nothing," Dis points out. "But we should do something formal at some point."

"There will be a party," Fili tells her. "I have only the barest memories of the feast we had when Thorin announced that my brother would be born, but I do remember Gimli's. It was something, and he was ninth in the line of succession."

"That will be good for me, I think," Sigrid says. "If everyone else is happy, it will help me to worry less."

"Oh," says Dis, "they will certainly be happy."

This is, it turns out, something of an understatement.

* * *

The morning of her wedding, Sigrid sweeps the doorstep of her father's house in Dale. It is no grand tradition, this, only long habit. Despite all of the changes in the past five years, as her father moved into a grander house and hired staff to keep it for him, as those women tried in vain to keep her from such tasks, and as she learned to manage a city where before she had only managed her siblings, Sigrid has swept that door every day since her mother grew too heavy bearing Tilda to do it herself.

"You used to be shorter than the broom handle," Bard says, coming to stand behind her. Usually he is already at his worktable by now, but the city council has declared a holiday and barred him from the premises to keep him at home.

"I know, Da," she says. "I remember."

"Your mother would be so proud of you," he tells her.

"I miss her," she says, turning to face him as she finishes her task.

"I know," he says, folding her in his arms. "But I'm proud of you too."

"I thought you didn't like the marriage," she says. "I mean, I know you like it politically, but I meant otherwise."

"Oh, my darling," he says, not letting her go. "It's only that I never wanted your life to be ruled by politics."

"I don't mind," she says. "Fili and I are well suited to one another."

"I'd still rather you married for love," he says.

"I might not be marrying for love, Da," she says. "But that doesn't mean I won't find it."

"Look at you," he says, laughing. "All grown up and hopeful."

"My father slayed a dragon, once," she tells him, smiling back. "That makes it easy to hope."

She doesn't tell him any of her fears; that she doesn't know how to be a wife, much less the wife of a dwarf who is also a prince. Fili has courted her so publicly that they never had the chance for intimate discussion. Now, she worries, it will be all intimacy with nothing discussed, though at the same time she knows her husband-to-be is a better man than that. She just wishes for her mother so _desperately_, in a way she hasn't since Tilda was very small.

But she doesn't tell him that either. She has not lived this long wishing for things she cannot have, and she won't start on her wedding day. Instead, she hugs her father again, and follows him back into his house, for the last time it is also hers.

* * *

The raven that is sent to Dale is a fine old bird that has mastered the tongues of Men and can deliver the message personally, rather than simply dropping a piece of parchment on the flagstones by the window. Sigrid is a bit sad that she will not see her father's reaction to the news, but it is a mere matter of hours before Bard and Tilda arrive, the former smiling broadly and the latter hurling herself down from her pony and into her sister's arms as soon as the party is through the gate.

"I am to stay until the baby comes, the raven said!" Tilda exclaims. Her voice has a natural ringing tone to it that Sigrid has yet to duplicate but has often wished for, and so everyone within a hundred yards hears her, even over the noise of the horses.

"Yes, Tilda," she says. "I am aware."

In accordance with the marriage contract, all of Sigrid's ladies are dwarrowdams, but not even the most pedantic of the legal scholars would think to keep their queen-to-be's sister from the Mountain while there is a babe on the way. Given the short notice, it's not a terribly formal greeting party. Thorin, Kili and Balin are caught up with the Elves and unable to attend. It suits Tilda better, Sigrid thinks, though her sister still charms any dwarf who crosses her path. Her father is wise enough not to take insult; he too rules.

"Come on, then," Sigrid tells her sister. "I'll show you where you are to stay."

The Man-sized quarters are currently full of elvish emissaries, but Tilda is not so tall that a regular suite would be uncomfortable. Sigrid is the taller of the two, and she manages well enough.

"Are you sure?" Dori had asked, quite put out that a visiting lady would be staying in 'short quarters'.

"I am sure, Master Dori," Sigrid had told him. "My sister will be fine, and I would rather have her closer to our rooms anyway."

That logic had shut Dori up. The ambassadorial quarters were on the opposite side of the hall, mostly so that the ruling dwarves would never encounter their guests accidentally in the corridors. Dori had bowed, and bustled off to make the necessary arrangements.

While the sisters off ahead, Fili and Bard are left to make the long walk to the salon where Fili and Sigrid entertain their guests. It would have been awkward, once upon a time, but in all the years of the alliance between City and Mountain, Fili and Bard have taken each other's measure, and their silence is almost companionable.

"Will you have to move to accommodate a nursery?" Bard asks when they are close. He doesn't have to stoop in the corridors, but it is a near thing.

"No, my lord," Fili says. "There are rooms next to ours that we can use. Balin is already working on the plans, and Gloin hopes to be cutting within the month, depending on how the negotiations with the elves go."

"My lord?" Bard sounds amused, but when Fili looks up, he sees that the smile does not reach Bard's eyes. "You've not called me that in years. You must be truly worried."

Fili sighs, and opens the door to the salon so that Bard doesn't have to bend to do it himself.

"I think dwarrowdams have an easier time of it," he says. "Or at least they do now that we are back in the Mountain. I confess, I had not thought about the differences in how we are built."

"I hadn't either, to my shame," Bard admits, sitting down by the fire. "What will you do?"

"Everything that I can," Fili tells him. "Oin is very good, and has overseen the birth of nearly every dwarf badger born in Ered Luin since the fall of Erebor. If he cannot help us, then I will send ravens to the elves. Their healing craft is different from ours, and they may know things we do not. Beside, Thranduil's people are already here, so we may not even need the birds."

"If I may offer a suggestion," Bard says, "it is said that Elrond of Rivendell is a great healer, perhaps the greatest of any Elf still in Middle Earth."

"I have heard the same," Fili says, "And he seemed more amused by us than put out when we stayed at Rivendell on our quest. I only worry that he might not come the distance."

"We will ask him in any case," Dis says from the doorway, Sigrid and Tilda behind her. "He is half-kin of Men too, and it is said that his children are also half-elven, even though their mother was born of Galadriel herself."

"I hadn't thought of that," Sigrid says. "It is something a relief to know that I am not the first person to bear a child of mixed blood. If Lord Elrond would come, or even put his advice in a letter, that would a great help."

"We will send to him, then," Fili says, as Sigrid comes to sit beside him.

"Now if you don't mind," Tilda says. "I would like to know why the Elves are still here. Only, Kili said he would teach me to fletch arrows, and he's been stuck in conferences with them for days."

They talk until Thorin and Kili are able to join them, at which point it is too late for any lessons. The announcement feast has been somewhat hastily thrown together, but it is magnificent nonetheless, with enough dancing that Tilda falls asleep in her seat and Bard has to carry her back to her rooms. Sigrid takes that as her cue to leave too, and Fili makes his exit with them.

"I'm glad you came, Tilda," Sigrid tells her sister as she tucks her into bed.

"You'll be fine at mothering, Sig," Tilda says, her voice mercifully quiet for once. Fili is just outside the door. "You took care of Bain and me for all those years, and you were only little then. Now you're grown, and Da says you're wise too."

"You don't think I'm wise?" Sigrid says, pinching the end of her sister's nose.

Tilda giggles. "Of course not. You're my sister."

Sigrid kisses her sister good night, bids her father good-bye, and returns to her rooms with Fili. There is a package for her there, cloth wrapped _cram_ in a basket. A note, written in common, says that it is from one of the kitchen dwarrowdams. A bite or two in the morning, before she even gets out bed, will help keep the nausea at bay.

"Provided the _cram_ doesn't nauseate you, of course," Fili adds. He has no high opinion of the stuff, having been forced to eat it too many times.

Sigrid only smiles, and puts one of the hard cakes on the table beside her bed. By the time she has dressed for sleep and lies in her husband's arms, she has nearly convinced herself that everything will be all right.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The baby cries, and there is naught that Sigrid can do to make her stop. She has been holding her sister for hours, it feels like, while their mother lies on the bed in an unhealthy sleep from which she will not wake. Bain is curled up in the window seat with an apple. He, at the least, is not crying, and Sigrid is glad of it. She wants her mother to wake, and the baby to be quiet and, more than anything, her father to come home and set everything to rights. But the sun is only just at the apex of the sky, and she knows it will be hours before he does.

She sings, and the baby does not quiet. She rocks her sister in her arms, and it does nothing. Finally, in desperation, she heats up the last of the goat's milk that her father brought home as a treat for her and Bain, but she is too short to reach the hob, and one handed she cannot manage the pot. She spills most of it, and burns her hand, which she cannot bind. She does not cry, even though it hurts beyond anything she has ever felt before. She has had enough of tears.

Bain crawls into bed with their mother, and falls asleep. Sigrid paces the floor, the screaming baby getting heavier by the moment. Her arms ache and her burned hand aches, and she is so tired. She wants to lie down beside her brother, but she knows that she cannot stop. She cannot give up.

At last the sun is low. Bain rouses himself to poke at the fire. At nearly four years, he can manage the poker well enough, but the embers are past the point of flaring back to life. Sigrid had forgotten to pay attention to them, so focused on her sister all day. She is staring at the woodpile, trying to remember how their father laid the logs that morning, when Bard comes in.

The other men in Esgaroth refer to her father as grim faced, but Sigrid has only ever known him as smiling and easy. She sees it now, though: his eyes are dark, and his mouth is set in a tight line. That scares her more than anything else that has happened today, and her eyes fill against her own determination otherwise.

"Oh, my darlings," he says, crossing to where they are huddled by the fire and taking all three of them into his arms. "Give me the poker."

He builds the fire anew, and hands Sigrid and Bain a strip each of the dried fish he takes with him when he is out on the barge. He kisses the baby's head, and then turns to where his wife lies, still burning up under the light sheets Sigrid covered her with.

"Sigrid," he says. "I am going to fetch the midwife. I will not be gone long. Stay close to the fire with your brother and sister."

The baby is still screaming, but Bain is content to chew and wait. Sigrid puts the fish in her sister's mouth and the baby sucks on it for a few blessed moments of quiet before spitting it out and beginning again. Soon enough, though, Bard returns with the midwife, who immediately takes the baby from Sigrid and turns to see what she can do for the ailing mother.

"Flocks and fleets, my ducks, has she been like this all day?" The midwife's false cheer sets Sigrid's teeth on edge, and she's not sure if it's her sister or her mother the midwife speaks of.

"Yes," Bain replies before Sigrid can. "Mama has been so hot and the baby would not mind Sigrid even though Sigrid held her and rocked and sang."

"I couldn't feed her, though," Sigrid admits. "I tried, but she was heavy and I burned myself on the pan."

The midwife exchanges a look with Bard that Sigrid does not understand, and then her father comes to her and looks at her hand.

"My brave girl," he says, taking one of his clean handkerchiefs to wrap around the burn. "You have done so much today. I could not ask for better."

"But-" Sigrid starts, trying to tell him that she has done nothing. The baby has not eaten. Bain has not eaten. And her mother has not risen, not once all day. Bard brings her hand to his mouth and kisses it, half courtly and half to make it better. The grimness is gone from his visage for a moment, and she feels her own smile creep across her face.

"Come, sit with Bain and mind the fire for me," he says. "You have earned a rest."

He wraps a blanket around them, and they fall asleep on the floor. When they wake, it is to learn that their mother has passed further into her fevered sleep, and is not expected to rise from it. The midwife has found another woman to feed the baby until Bard can secure his own goat, so it is quiet, save for the crackling of the fire. Sigrid would be willing to hear the cacophony again, if only it meant her mother was awake.

Later, when the men have come to take her mother away to be wrapped up and put in a boat for burning, Sigrid tries to remember the last thing her mother said. It wasn't spoken to her, Sigrid knows this much, nor to her father. Rather, it was whispered to the baby instead, the baby that Sigrid now holds.

"Tilda," she says, and cries at last, for it is as much a beginning as it is an end.

* * *

By the time Sigrid is showing, the elves have long-since departed from the Mountain, and Tilda has learned to fletch an arrow that will not buzz like an angry bee when fired. Her nausea has not yet faded, though it seems that fewer foods and smells trigger her. She has, however, remained dependent upon _cram_ in the mornings, and is developing an entirely dwarvish distaste for it that Fili finds endlessly amusing.

She no longer spends her mornings in the stillrooms, for those smells still set her off, and she misses the steady work there. She goes to the kitchens instead, which are marginally safer in that there is not shortage of empty pails and pots should she require them, but her tasks there are less complicated and she finds that she tires of them quickly, as they must nearly all be done standing up.

To keep from feeling completely overmatched, she throws herself into sewing. She had not done the traditional bride work before coming to the mountain because they had linens aplenty already and she was not outfitting a house, but there are endless blankets and napkins to prepare, as well as her own dresses to modify for her rapidly expanding figure. So she sits with her dwarrowdam ladies and with her sister, and they stitch and share secrets in a way that Sigrid had only dreamed of before.

"You will find," Gloin's wife says, "that all males are terrified of badgers."

"They have faced orcs and worse on the battlefield," Tilda protests. "My father slayed a dragon! Why would they fear a baby?"

The few mothers in the group laugh, the hearty laugh of dwarves and Sigrid first found so shocking but has come to love.

"You will see," says Dis, who has joined them this afternoon. Often she is too busy with the guilds. "Even my brother quailed when I tried to pass Fili to him the first time."

Tilda, ever mindful for such openings, immediately requests stories of Fili and Kili when they were badgers, and Dis is quite happy to tell them the most shameful secrets of her sons. Tauriel, who does not sew much beyond her own mending but attends because she enjoys Sigrid's company, cannot look at either of the princes over dinner for a week, which makes the entire thing even better.

The piles of garments grow around them, not all for Sigrid. There are two other dwarrowdams who will bear children after Sigrid does, and three weddings to sew for. Dis has also set aside some time to expand Tilda's collection of linen, a gift for which both sisters are quite grateful. When they grow tired of hemming sheets, they teach Tauriel to embroider, which is a source of great amusement for all witnesses and somehow a tale that is never repeated outside the sewing room, no matter how hard Kili begs to hear it.

"It's lovely," Tilda says one night when Fili is kept late with Thorin and Balin, and she and Sigrid have climbed into Tilda's bed as they have not done since the night before Sigrid was married. Then her face grows solemn. "Do you think Mama would mind?"

Bain has few recollections of their mother, and Tilda nary a one. Sigrid has tried to tell them both about her, but sometimes she had wondered if that might only serve to make Tilda sad. Sigrid knows that the memory of her mother hurts enough, and is never sure if her sister's lack of memory is good or ill.

"I think Mama would be happy to see us happy," Sigrid tells her. "I miss her less and less, living here, until I think about her, and then I find I miss her even more."

"Sometimes I wish I knew her," Tilda says. "But I've always had you, and now I have Maude. I don't need anything else."

"I don't either," Sigrid says. "I don't think either of us are quite used to having more than we need."

"You'll never be used to it," Tilda says, closing her eyes. "You and Fili both. Da says that's what makes you good."

It makes them all good, Sigrid thinks, but doesn't say. The challenge will be raising the babe to be the same way, without it ever having to wonder where the next meal is coming from or if the house would burn in the night because a dragon had decided to finally do something about the defenseless town in the middle of the Long Lake.

They will build that bridge when they need to, she decides, crawling out from her sister's bed and then tucking in the coverlet as she might have done years ago when the blanket was only half as thick. When she gets back to their rooms, Fili is waiting for her, and she goes into his arms with a smile. She does not need this either, but she is forever glad to have it.

* * *

Even with five years to rebuild, Sigrid's dowry is not what it should be. She will go into the Mountain to marry its prince with a small wardrobe and no fine linens. The dwarves do not mind. Their marriage traditions are different enough that they did not expect Sigrid to bring a dowry at all, but the people of Dale know, and feel the shortcoming rather personally.

They arrive in small boxes and wooden chests. No one has heirlooms anymore, or at least not many, but five years is enough time for a merchant to turn profit; enough time for a craftsman to make trinkets to sell. There are ribbons and pins, a set of drinking cups rumoured to come from the Shire itself, and cuttings from nearly every sort of flower grown in Dale.

"Where did it come from?" Fili asks as he helps Sigrid pack the ponies that will carry her belongings to the Mountain.

"From Dale," is all that Sigrid can tell him, because that is as much as she knows.

"None of it is dwarf-make," Fili says, as much to himself as to her. "I mean, none of it is what dwarves craft."

"Of course," she tells him. "They are as much for you as they are for me. That's why I asked you to help me pack it all up."

"I am devastated, my lady," he says to her with a hand over his heart like she has stuck him with a spear. "I had thought that you pined away without me."

She laughs, drawing the eyes of her father and of Master Dwalin, who came to escort Fili. They are still so formal with one another, despite their attempts otherwise, that she feels laughing with him is a step in the right direction.

"Alas, my lord," she replies in much haughtier tone than she has ever used. "I have been so busy that I barely noticed your absence at all."

Fili roars with laughter at this, and she sees the dwarf musician that Tilda talks about sometimes when she tells stories that Kili has told her about when they were badgers in Ered Luin. He has relaxed into his role as prince, as she has to her place as a lady in Dale, and she can only hope that it will not take them five years to become accustomed to being wed to one another. Dwarves and elves might have that kind of time, but Sigrid would prefer to be settled long before that.

"Come on, Dwalin," calls Fili when the last pony is laden. "We must away to Erebor before my lady comes to know me well enough that she can no longer bear to be parted from me."

"Somehow I doubt that's how it would work out," Dwalin growls, but he winks when he says it, belying his tone. Behind him, Bard looks solemn again, but Sigrid is pleased to note that the grim-faced father she knew did not dive from Esgaroth after slaying the dragon.

"I am beset from all sides," Fili declares, and takes her hand to kiss it. Then he swings up on an unladen pony and, with his guard beside him, heads up the trail for the Gate that will soon be the entrance to their home.

Sigrid watches him until he disappears, and is surprised to learn that she does, in fact, miss him.

* * *

In addition to her sewing preparations, Sigrid has begun to sit in on more court sessions. She had heard her father's petitioners while she still lived in Dale, but has not spent much time at such tasks in Erebor. Still, there is a chair for her beside Fili's on the dais, and if her attention drifts when a dwarf-lord is quibbling over a contract with Balin, she merely has to rest a hand on her growing belly and no one complains.

This day, however, there is something that holds her gaze. A rather large hound stands with the petitioners, apparently more content to wait for its turn than many of the dwarves who come to the hall. Nearly the size of a dwarf pony, the hound carries saddlebags like a pony might, though they are made of woven grasses and not leather as the dwarf ones would be.

When the hound's turn comes, it makes a rather elegant bow to Thorin before turning and coming to stand in front of Sigrid and Fili. At five months, it takes a rather significant amount of effort for Sigrid to rise from her chair, so when Fili squeezes her hand and stands, she waits for him to pull her up with some amount of dignity. The hound whuffs at her knees, and then moves so that she can reach into one of the baskets it carries. Its tail wags as Fili takes the opportunity to scratch behind its ears.

There is a scroll, which she passes to Balin, and several tightly wrapped bundles underneath. The smell wafting out of the basket is delightful, and she sees Fili smile.

"To the Lady of the Mountain, from the Skin-Changer Beorn," Balin reads, entering the letter into the dwarven records because the hound cannot speak to do it itself. "A raven bound for Rivendell took its rest here some weeks ago, and I understood from its speech that you were still unwell at times."

Balin reads all of this in his booming voice, echoes bouncing off the high stone roof. Sigrid might have blushed, once upon a time, to hear her health discussed so publicly, but five years with dwarves have changed her conceptions of privacy.

"The hound bears honey-cakes of my own make," Balin continues, "which I can, at least, assure you will suit better than _cram_."

There is laughter at that.

"The hound may stay if he wishes," Balin concludes, "but he is a free creature, and if he does not remain with you, please permit him to go where ever he would."

"Thank you, hound," Thorin says, with only the barest hint of a smile as he addresses the dog as formally as he addresses his kin. "You are most welcome here in Erebor."

The hound bows again as Fili lifts the baskets from its sides, and then turns to sit at Sigrid's feet for the remainder of the session. After, it follows them back to their quarters and lies on the rug before the fire, while Tilda, who came with them, sits down beside it.

"Beorn didn't say what his name is," Tilda points out.

"None of the creatures Beorn keeps had names, so far as I know," Fili says. "There were a great many of them. Perhaps they have names in their own tongues, and Beorn didn't think we could say it properly."

"Maybe it has a secret name, like a dwarf," Sigrid adds, smiling. Secret names plague her sister's existence because she neither has nor knows one.

"Do you have a name, hound?" Tilda asks. "I will say it a hundred times until I say it properly."

The hound licks her face from chin to hairline, and Tilda falls over its long body, giggling. When she has recovered herself, she sits between its paws looking thoughtful.

"He has such curly toes," Tilda says. "Perhaps we ought to name him Bilbo."

Fili protests that she ought not name a hound, even a hound like this one, after a Hobbit, but for all his efforts, the hound will respond to nothing else. Bilbo-the-hound sits at Sigrid's feet every day in court, and lies well out of the way when she meets with her ladies to sew. He sleeps on the rug by the fire at night, and performs daily inspections of the room that will serve as the nursery.

When Sigrid's pains begin at last, it the hounds barking that first raises the alarm.

* * *

**Here's to finishing before 2015!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Fili does not like to be so long without her. This is not like his expeditions out of the Mountain for a hunt or on a trade mission to the Iron Hills. With those he has a purpose, and knows that she is safely home and waiting for his return. This is courting madness, this unawareness of what she is doing or how she is faring, and he feels like soon his frustrations will crack the very stone.

Of course, cracking stone is what has caused this problem in the first place. He came here with a group of workmen, not miners, but carvers and those dwarrows who could see the flaws in a rockface and how to fix them. It is a skill all dwarves possess, but some are gifted beyond others, and it is those that Thorin has put to work shoring up the Mountain's bones. In the earlier years of Erebor's resettlement, all efforts were focussed on the living quarters, forges, and most accessible mines. Now, at last the dwarves have begun to expand their rebuilding, though each step must be thoughtfully placed.

Nori, who is the best at sensing how to find and fix problems, is working with a large team close to the guild halls, while Bofur, who is only slightly less proficient, overseas the lower mines. Both areas are stable enough for daily use as they are, but Thorin wants to ensure that they are as safe as they were before the dragon came, because they see so much traffic. Fili, who is still too young for anyone to expect his stone sense to be flourishing yet, supervises more experienced dwarves as they inspect the ancient lower Gates, smashed by the dragon. They are not vital, but would make life more convenient, and they are as good a place as any for the Crown Prince to learn.

They are in much worse condition than anyone anticipated. Even Fili's stone sense is enough to determine that the work is better left for a later day, but before the dwarrows could retreat to the safety of more stable rock, the chamber they were in had come down around their ears.

"My Prince," whispers an engineer when the shaking and falling have finally ceased. "Are you wounded?"

"No," Fili replies. "Everyone else?"

There is a slow murmur of voices as the others report. They are all whole and no one was caught by too large a rock, though there are some bruises and one lightly bashed skull.

"The cave?" Fili breathes, hoping the engineer will understand his meaning. It's too dark to use iglishmêk until their eyes adjust, but speaking aloud might dislodge more stone.

"Safe for now," the engineer says. His voice is low, careful, but not overly so. "It braces itself now, my prince. If you put your hand here, you will feel it."

Fili had done so, and had known immediately that the engineer was correct. The stones had found a new rest, and had stayed solid for three days since the collapse. Every time Fili places his hand upon the wall, the stones are a steady thrum under his fingers: unmoving, but with the slightest sense of not-belonging where they are. He knows it will not stay stable forever.

And yet there is nothing he can do. There is air, but they have only the water they carried with them and no food at all. Three days without food is not much for a dwarf, but Fili misses his wife, and cannot find anything to distract him from thoughts of her. None of his companions speak very much - nor do they move - for fear of upsetting the Mountain's balance, and there is nothing to pull Fili from his own mind. Sitting in the dark, with nothing to do but hope, is, he thinks, the longest wait of his entire life.

Fili is wrong about that.

* * *

The raven brings news of the Elf Lord's approach two days before his train can be seen from the Overlook. Oin does not say the words aloud, but he is relieved beyond measure. Sigrid is healthy still, and the babe hammers hard enough to make even Thorin smile, but Oin has felt the shape of the badger's head, and knows in his bones that Sigrid's original fears were correct. The child is so well-grown that now it is a worry, and in these last days, the old dwarf midwife will be glad of all the help he can get.

Lord Elrond arrives in the mountain with some small number of his kin, several curious bundles that are sent straight to the stillroom, and the Captain Tauriel as escort. Sigrid does not make the trek to the Front Gate to meet him, but Fili does, and once Kili and Tauriel have gone to supervise the unpacking, Fili guides the Elf Lord through the grand halls and smaller corridors to the rooms where Sigrid spends the bulk of her time.

The hound, which Fili still cannot name with a straight face, greets them at the door. The creature is exuberant to see Fili, as usual, but pauses with some dignity before Elrond.

"A noble beast," Elrond says, when the hound at last consents to have its ears scratched. "How came you by it?"

"Beorn sent him with a gift," Sigrid says from her chair by the hearth. She is struggling to rise when Elrond crosses to her side and lays a hand on her arm. "He has decided to stay with us."

"He is a herd dog," Elrond says. "Or at least, that is what they use his breed for in Gondor. If he has chosen you to guard, he will not stray again."

"That is well," Sigrid says, "for I have grown fond of his company."

"How fare you, my lady?" Elrond asks her then, his hand still light upon her shoulder.

"I am well enough, I think," she says to him. "My back aches and my feet are swollen, but I hardly consider that unusual. I merely feel restless and ungainly, so I try not to move."

"Does it pain you overmuch to walk?" he asks.

"Not if I have someone to support me," she says. "My sister is too small, and I don't like to ask the guards if Fili is away."

This is the first Fili has heard of this, and it is only a decade of political training that keeps him from taking her to task about it.

"I will aid your steps now that I am here," Elrond says, perhaps sensing the tension. "It will allow me to monitor your state, and ensure that you are on your feet with some regularity."

"Thank you, my lord," Sigrid says, then pauses. "I must confess, Lord Elrond, you are not what I expected. Captain Tauriel tells me that she is a lowborn elf, but when she is here, her presence is undeniable. I had not anticipated you to be so…"

She trails off, at a loss for words, but Fili finds he understands her. His dealings with Legolas and Thranduil's various ambassadors always put his teeth on edge. He has no idea how Kili manages to keep his head. Yet Elrond is straightforward and his company does not have the same sharpness to it that Fili has come to associate with elves.

"You forget, my lady, why my advice was called for," Elrond says gently, lack of offense clear in his tone. "I may count the first born as my kin on one side of my heritage, but there is an aspect of my blood that I share with you."

Sigrid's hands go to her belly, and Fili follows the movement with his eyes. Elrond smiles at them both, and straightens his shoulders. His head is shorter than the ceiling, but only just, though it does not seem to bother him. The hound comes to sniff at his robes, and Fili recalls that, elf or no, the lord has just ridden halfway across Middle Earth to come to their aid. He ought to at least make the attempt to be the proper host.

"My lord Elrond," he says. "If you will follow me, I will show you where you and your kin are to be quartered during your stay. There will be a selection of runners placed at your disposal while you are here so that you do not have to worry about navigating the Mountain on your own. Please let me or Lady Sigrid know if you require anything."

"Thank you, Prince Fili," Elrond says. "The road is long, even for an elf. My lady, I will call on you again after I have settled in, that we might discuss the finer points of the days to come."

Sigrid nods, and Fili determinedly pushes all ill thoughts from his head. He kisses her brow, and leads the elf lord back out into the corridors of Erebor.

* * *

When at last the stones are cleared away, and fresh air fills his lungs for the first time in days, Fili wants to go home more than he has ever wanted anything in his life. The medics insist that they examine him, and someone presses a full waterskin into his hands, holding it to his lips when he makes no move to drink on his own accord. Sigrid is not there.

At first he thinks that he only cannot see her. That she is behind a rock tending to some other dwarf and has not yet noticed that he has been pulled free, but soon enough he realizes that she is not in the tunnel at all. There is dust in the air. After so many days with nothing to do but sense the stone around him, Fili's awareness of it is greater than it has ever been. The corridor is intact, but it is less stable than it was. They will have kept Sigrid away lest she come to harm in the same rockfall that held him captive.

He is both glad of that, and angered. They have no right to keep them from each other. No right at all. His mind is full of stone and anger and her, and it is not until Nori takes him by the shoulders and gives him a firm shake, amidst much protest from the medics, who remain concerned for his head, that his thoughts clear.

"Durin skulls," Nori says, so quietly that only Fili hears him.

"You've got one too," Fili points out, to let the other dwarf know that he understands and is grateful.

"Aye, but mine is carefully trained," Nori says.

"So train me," Fili says, and then holds up a hand. "Later. I want to go home."

This is overheard by all present, and they smile. Rockfalls and danger taken care of, they are pleased to remember that their prince is still as besotted with his wife as ever, and when the medic clears him to leave, Fili is gone before the dwarf is fully standing upright from his bow.

Sigrid is waiting for him, flying across the room with a hand raised as though she intends to strike him, and he catches the blow before either of them can figure out what it was she really meant to do. He holds her more tightly than he means to, and she starts to scold him in the same breath as he kisses her. He knows she wants him safe with the same ferocity he craves her safety, but he also knows that he cannot promise her anything to that regard. He cannot lie to her, however much he wants to see her calmed and comforted, not even if it would calm himself.

Instead he pulls at her clothes, while she pulls at his. He does not tear at her laces because she stops him, but once he has her naked and in their bed, he does not hold anything back, and she does not dissuade him. He is not elegant or considerate, and he finishes long before he means to, but Sigrid does not complain. He doesn't think about his ferocity until after, when he turns to see her and the lamplight shows the marks that are still reddening her skin.

He looks at each of them in turn, a quiet horror at what he has done boiling in his chest. Sigrid lets him carry her into the bathroom, into the hottest part of the tub, and does not protest when he pulls her into his arms again and sets to kissing each place his touch was too harsh against her skin. He feels three days' worth of worry melt from her, as three days' frustration went from him, but much less destructively. He is so tired, but he has done nothing but rest and wait since the cave in, and now his need to fix what has happened is overwhelming.

"There wasn't much to do, except sit and wait," he says eventually. "We couldn't touch anything or fear of bringing more of it down. We just had to hope aid was coming."

"They wouldn't let me help," she says, and he kisses her again, because she understands, at least in part, what it means to need to fix something and not be allowed to. "All I could do was sit and wait too.

"Sigrid," he says, trying once more to apologize.

"It's all right," she tells him, even though he does not think he has done enough to be sure that it is. "It's all right. You're safe. You're safe."

She repeats it several more times, and then the tears come. It's not a storm or a rage, like it was when he came home. It's quiet, and he kisses the salt from her cheeks as she calms. He promises himself that he will never cause her harm again, and does not know that, despite of himself, he has made a promise he cannot keep.

* * *

Elrond and Oin make an odd pair, but quickly determine the other's strengths and determine the best way forward. Elrond, for all his long years as a healer, has overseen the birth of only one child: a boy of Ranger get whom he now fosters. Oin, on the other hand, has delivered nearly every badger born to his kin, both in Erebor and the Blue Mountains, since he completed his apprenticeship as a medic. His family may joke about an unfortunate incident involving his nephew, a too-small swaddling blanket, and a hard stone floor, but it is well known amongst the dwarves that he is the best.

"I think it is best, then," Oin says, "if I see to the badger's care while you give your attentions to the lady."

"I agree," Elrond says, his voice loud enough that Oin can hear him without the trumpet. They will both need full use of their hands, after all.

They resume their inventory of their equipment, pruning clutter where ever they can. Elrond has seen too much healing done by the Dunedain to be put off by the earthiness of Oin's accoutrements. Elves tend to rely overmuch on herblore and spells, which do not always work fully on other races, and have not been tested at all on childbirth. It is entirely possible that he will be no help at all, until the moment of greatest need. It has occurred to him that he should ask Sigrid or Fili if they have discussed the possibility of hard choices, but he feels he would get two different answers if he did. Rather, he will make the decision himself, if it must be made, and deal with the fallout as it comes.

So he discusses blades with Oin, hoping they will never have to use them, and makes sure that the bottles and jars he carried from Imladris are labelled such that they can be identified by the young runners Thorin has assigned to aid them. Then it is a matter of restraining himself from checking and rechecking that everything is in place.

"This is the part I hate the most," Balin says when the old dwarf joins them for luncheon on the fourth day after Elrond's arrival to the Mountian. Theoretically, he is ensuring that the healers have everything they need, but Elrond suspects that Thorin's temper is shortening as well, and does not begrudge Balin a short respite of it.

"Indeed," Elrond says. "At least, were we waiting for a battle, there would eventually be something to fight."

Balin sighs, and passes his tobacco pouch to Oin. Elrond doesn't smoke, but has spent enough time with Gandalf that he understand the need to, and, somewhat oddly, he finds the scent comforting. It is undeniably the scent of peace and quiet. Oin packs his pipe and lights it, drawing for a good draft until he has it, and then, out of long habit, offers it to Elrond.

"No, thank you," Elrond says, and turns to Balin to ask about the state of Gondorian trade. The affairs of Men have not bothered him overmuch for some years now, but he feels that the time has come for his renewed interest.

The pipes are still half-filled with the sweet-smelling pipeweed when Elrond's elf-ears hear a sound that would cause his heart to race were he fully elven and in his own well guarded house. It is the hound, barking fit to raise an alarm in all corners of the Mountain, and shortly after Elrond hears it, the first of the young dwarf runners bursts into the room, short of breath and panting, to tell them that Sigrid's time is come.

* * *

**Apparently there are going to be six chapters.**

**PLEASE LET THERE ONLY BE SIX CHAPTERS.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

It is taking far too long.

Ten years of living in Erebor, of learning its rock and bones, has given him a perfect sense of each moment that passes, even in the darkest corridors or mine shafts. Thorin sets him to shoveling coal, which is a mistake, because the work evens out his heart-rate and makes it even easier for him to measure minutes. By the time the King Under the Mountain realizes his error, they have filled quite a few hoppers, but each of them knows exactly how long it has taken, and so no one's nerves are soothed.

They are returning their shovels to the quartermaster, who resolutely bows to Thorin and does not meet Fili's eyes, when Dwalin appears.

"Kili is coming up the causeway with Bard," he reports. "They will be at the Gate soon."

Sending Kili to Dale had been Balin's idea. In addition to getting him out of Tauriel's hair, a dwarf messenger in place of a raven will allow the guardsmen on the wall plenty of time to see the approach, which in turn allows Bard plenty of time to set his affairs in order before coming to the Mountain. The only problem is that the journey there and back again takes a number of hours that everyone knows, which only further serves to hammer home and it has been too long since Sigrid went into labour.

"It will take time," Dis had said, pulling him towards the door as she spoke. "You must promise me that you will keep your head."

Fili had only nodded, staring dumbly at Sigrid's face which was already white with pain. Elrond had teas and medicines that would numb the edge of it, but they had not had time to take effect yet. She had gripped his hand so hard.

It is only now that Fili understands. When Kili was born, Fili was young enough that he didn't know any better. Thorin took him to the forge and let him play with the bellows for hours and never complained about the wasted coal. He'd finally fallen asleep in the empty coal scuttle and Thorin had carried him home to his new sibling. He wishes for such oblivion now, because his every nerve is screaming with worry and there is nothing he can do to quiet them.

"Fili!" Thorin is saying, and Fili can tell from his tone that he has said it more than once. He must keep his head. "Come, nephew. We must go up."

They ascend by the stairs, which takes longer, and so Bard is already waiting in Fili's receiving room when they arrive. Kili is pouring ale, heavily watered if Fili knows his mother, and he takes the cup when it is offered to him. Bard lifts his own cup in a silent toast, or prayer, and Fili responds. He's covered in coal dust, but he doesn't care.

A runner brings a plate of food. It's too early for dinner, but Fili knows they passed over luncheon. He has no idea if Bard managed to eat. Men measure time by the sun, not by the feel of stone, and Fili wonders if Bard will lose track of time now that he is underground. It would be a mercy if he did, but Fili cannot.

The door open and Tilda comes in. She throws herself into her father's arms, and he holds her tight against his broad chest. Her hands are too cleanly scrubbed, like someone had made sure she would bear no trace of the birthing room once she left it.

"Lord Elrond says that Sigrid is doing well," Tilda says. "She is strong, and the babe's heartbeat is strong too. Oin says that Sigrid's labour will not be as easy as a dwarrowdam's would be, but he thinks the progress is good."

Dwalin breathes out harshly, and Thorin relaxes into his chair, but neither Fili nor Bard are any less on edge.

"Da, I must return," Tilda says. "You have to let me go."

Bard presses a kiss to his youngest daughter's forehead, and finally releases her. She smiles briefly at Kili, and then kisses Fili's cheek.

"From Sigrid," she says, and her smile is true.

Fili pulls her forehead to his. Now that she is close, he can see that there are unshed tears in her eyes. He doesn't think they are tears from grief, but he is too much a coward right now to ask her. Instead, he makes himself smile in reply to hers, and hopes that his looks genuines, as her does. He must keep his head. He has promised, and so he must do it.

"Tell her that I love her," he says, and then Tilda is gone.

It is taking too long. There is nothing to do but wait.

* * *

They have put her in the bathing room, because it is the warmest place, and because between her early contractions, Elrond had counseled that she be put into the tub for respite. It is comforting to still be at home. They had discussed the possibility of the infirmary, but Oin had only said that he could get more dwarflings to run his errands for him, and that she must be as much at ease as she could be.

In the beginning, when Sigrid was more mobile, she had walked circles around the tub, leaning on the shoulders of her ladies, or on the arm of Elrond, or Tauriel. She learns the room's modified layout on her rounds past the the birthing bricks, the pile of linens, and the table where Oin and Elrond have laid out their tools and tinctures. Tilda is too slight to bear her weight, and so had been charged with keeping the linens sorted, ensuring clean ones were at hand and the soiled ones were sent out of the room. Now, as the hours drag on, it takes both elves to guide her steps and keep her steady on the humid stone.

Dis will tolerate nothing short of perfection, and has been dismissing the other dwarrowdams if they begin to look worried about Sigrid's progress. Tauriel has been designated the new message runner on the grounds that no one in the corridors will stop her for information, though Tilda had taken one message herself when their father arrived. She reported back that both Bard and Fili sent their love, and Sigrid did not ask how they were faring. She is not sure she can spare the effort to care. Gloin's wife is managing supplies from the infirmary, as well as overseeing the runners and the kitchen staff. Besides Sigrid, it is only Dis, Oin, Elrond and Tilda who remain.

The contractions are coming so close together now that Sigrid does not have time to make it from the bricks to her chair between them. Instead, she slumps in Dis's grip when the pain lessens, only to be pushed back into her squat when her muscles clench to begin again, and Oin or Elrond take the other place beside her.

Tilda looks awful, which can only mean that Sigrid looks worse, but she tries to speak to her sister when she can, and is glad that when Dis tells stories about dwarf history and legend, her voice is loud enough that both sisters can hear it. Sigrid hopes she will remember the words and the songs, that they will not disappear beneath the waves of pain that wash over her, but she knows that if she asks, Dis will gladly sing them all again. Sigrid and her child will learn dwarven songs together, if all goes well, and Sigrid will make sure the babe knows the tales of Men as well.

"Sigrid, drink this," Oin says, and Sigrid obediently swallows the few mouthfuls of water infused with whatever herb Elrond has decided it is time for. She can no longer taste them, but she is glad for the cool water in the heat of the room.

Hours ago, each draught made her feel stronger, but now it is like feeding kindling to a dying fire: the flare-up is brief and the flame is quickly used. This one eases the ache in her knees, which is not the chiefest of her pains at the moment, but still one she is glad to be spared of, however momentarily. In Dale, the women do no labour on bricks as the dwarrowdams do, but Oin had felt they were the best option, and Elrond had agreed. Sigrid no longer cares. She only wishes for it to be over.

"Come up again, Sigrid," Dis tells her, and Sigrid wonders if her heart-mother can sense the way her muscles tense the same way all dwarves sense the stones of the Mountain.

"That's a good lass," Oin says, bracing her other shoulder. He continues to talk as her contraction overtakes her.

It is the worst one yet, and Sigrid screams to feel it mute all her other pain. She swoons, and it is only the dwarves that keep her on the bricks. It goes on and on, and her legs fail her completely, leaning against Dis to stop from falling.

"I can see it!" Tilda cries, "Sigrid, I can see the top of the head!"

Sigrid's eyes clear at her sister's words. She cannot see, of course, but she does not miss the look that passes between Oin and Elrond when they realize that the babe has crowned while she nearly fainted from the pain of it.

"Fili," she says. "Please."

It has taken too long. The babe has crowned, and Sigrid has no strength left with which to push.

* * *

The Mountain is too quiet. Fili knows that this isn't possible. The forges burn and the bellows pump great gusts of air. The hammers still fall, and the work of the Dwarves of Erebor continues unceasing. But it feels to him as though everyone is muted, waiting.

They are no longer speaking. Balin gave up after an hour of smothered conversation, unable to draw Bard or Thorin out. Dwalin left without a word some time ago, and Fili knows that he has gone to the practice arena. He spares a moment's thought for the health of any who spar against the guard captain this day, and wishes he could seek out the same sort of relief. Instead, he stays where he is, ready if they should need him, though for what he is afraid to even think.

Tauriel brings them news infrequently, the time between her appearances stretching out. She lingers at Kili's side each time she comes, speaking too low for anyone else to hear, but not even Thorin can miss the way their fingers tangle together as they talk.

Someone, Balin probably, has had Fili's fiddle brought in. It's not one of his good ones, nor is it the favoured one that he plays for Sigrid when she asks for a tune in the evenings. It is a fiddle that no one will miss, should Fili grip it too tightly or turn the strings too far. He leaves it where it lies. Any music he might play now would be too full up of worry and nerves. Anxiety does not translate well through from bow to string, and he will not torture himself, much less everyone else, with any noise he might produce.

But it is too quiet. It is too quiet, and he cannot bring himself to play or talk or anything. He only sits, and listens to the stone, and wishes that he could be so unyielding as it appears to be. He knows there are flaws and instabilities in it, but they are deeply buried and carefully controlled. He feels like he will fly apart for lack of anything to do. He starts to recite the stones and precious metals in his head, but it sounds too much like a child's lesson, too similar to that which he and Kili and learned at Balin's knee. He tries his lineage instead, but every time he reaches into his memory for a name, the only one he can recall is hers.

Sigrid, Sigrid, Sigrid.

A messenger, not Tauriel, comes into the room.

"My lords," she says. "My prince, you are called for."

And then he is running, because he can tell by her face that it is not good news.

* * *

"Sigrid, you must push," Dis tells her, over and over. "We will hold you up. You will not fall. But you must push, now."

She wants to. It is the strangest feeling because she wants to, but she has nothing left. There is a pressure at her mouth, and she feels a warm drink slide between her lips. This one is different from everything else that Elrond has given her thus far, and it smells wonderful. She feels stronger immediately, and bears down upon the bricks. Dis staggers, caught surprised by the sudden burst of strength, but Elrond was ready for it, and they do not fall.

"What did you give her?" Oin demands.

"Miruvor," Elrond tells him. "It is a restorative cordial."

"Why didn't you give it to her before?" Tilda asks. She has folded and re-folded the receiving blanket so many times that it creases under her fingers.

"Because it is too potent," Elrond says. "She will push now, but she will not save any of her strength for herself."

It hovers there for a moment, and then Sigrid bears down again.

"I am sorry, Sigrid," Elrond says to her. "But if you did not push, we would have lost your both."

She cannot find the breath to tell him that he has done well, that she is grateful. She can only push and push again, her throat raw from screaming.

"Just one more, Sigrid," Dis says. "One more."

She does, and there is a new sound, piercing the haze around Sigrid's mind. She has never heard it before, and yet now that she does, she knows that it is entirely familiar. Dis pulls her off the bricks to finally rest, and Oin continues to coach her through the lesser pressure of the contractions that still wreak havoc across her belly. She swoons again, and wakes to Oin cutting a thread and Dis wrapping the afterbirth in one of the blankets Tilda had made ready for it. She is exhausted, but her heart is racing and will not calm. She wants only to sleep, to sleep at last, but the noise pulls at her and will not let her drift away.

Then there is a scuffle by the door, and Fili bursts into the room.

* * *

Elrond is holding the babe in his arms when Fili throws the bathing room door open. The Elf Lord can see a moment of indecision in the prince's eyes, whether to go to the baby or to his wife, but Elrond makes the decision for him. With a hand on the dwarf's shoulder, he guides the prince across the stones, and places the baby in his mother's arms.

The door is crowded, full of dwarves, though Elrond can see where Bard stands behind them.

"Get them out," he says to Dis and Oin. "Everyone but Tilda and the hound. Tell them all will be well, but get them out."

Dis wastes no time in throwing her brother, cousins, and son from the suite. Elrond does not imagine they have gone far down the corridor, but at least they are out from underfoot. He and Oin agreed days ago that once the babe was born, Elrond would have full control. Elven healers do not have many births, but they do excel at physicing the gravest of wounds, and since Oin once witnessed such a healing with his own eyes, he knew to concede the point.

Fili has sat down beside Sigrid, uncaring of the mess, and his arms hold hers as she cradles their son. Elrond is not entirely sure she is lucid, but Fili is talking to her, and that will bring her back if she is to come. Tilda has made it as far as the hearthrug, where she is curled up with the hound. Elrond can tell she is crying, but he cannot offer her comfort yet, so he minds his tongue.

"Fili," he says instead. "We must get them to a better place to rest."

Fili lifts his wife and son as though they weigh nothing at all, and carries them to bed. He kicks off his boots and crawls in with them.

"Sigrid," he says. "Love, I need you to wake up now."

The baby isn't crying anymore, wrapped and warmed as he is. He'll need to eat soon, Fili recalls. He notices blood on the sheets, but when he would have raised the alarm, Elrond waved him off.

"She will heal," the elf says. "Oin will change the dressing when she is stronger."

Sigrid stirs against him, her own arms still around the baby. Her heart beat is slowing down, becoming less frantic against her ribs. He measures it against his own, and finds that she is resting softer now.

"Barin," she says, so quietly that he can scarcely hear her, but Elrond smiles.

"Yes," says Fili. "Hail Prince Under the Mountain."

* * *

The party lasts for nearly a week. Men and women come up from Dale to join the celebrations, and the mining is stopped for three whole days. Sigrid makes only the briefest of appearances, pale and wan on Fili's arm as he holds their son up before the adoring crowds with the other, but she is stronger every day, and Oin tells them that she will be well enough to return to the stillroom before much longer.

Elrond takes his leave the day the miners return to work. He names Sigrid and Oin elf-friends before he goes, and Kili and Tauriel accompany him as far as the forest eaves. Even with Elrond gone, there is a steady parade of dwarves and other visitors through Fili's receiving rooms to wish them well and see the baby closer up. He is not at all ashamed to use Sigrid's fatigue as an excuse to take their leave early, and he can see that she does not mind either, though perhaps he has exaggerated how tired she is.

The baby sleeps in the nursery, where the hound has taken up permanent residence as well. A herd dog, Lord Elrond had said, and it seems the creature has indeed found his herd. Between that guardian and the dwarrowdam who sits by the fire, the babe is secure for the night.

At last, they are alone.

"There will be no more badgers," Oin had said. "Even if Sigrid could bear another, I don't think she should."

They both know better than to protest. Sigrid had felt the miruvor leaving her, and Fili had watched it happen. One dwarfling will be enough for them.

"Will you play?" she asks, and he goes for his fiddle.

She sits in the chair by the fire, as she had done in those early weeks before they knew the way of being married, the way of one another, but the girl who had come to the Mountain is long gone. In her place is the Lady of Dwarves, the Lady of Erebor, his Sigrid, his own, and he would not trade her for anything. He plays a lullabye, and she smiles at him with such affection that he thinks his heart may burst of it. When she falls asleep, he puts the fiddle away, and then, just as carefully, he takes her to bed.

**finis**

* * *

Gravity_Not_Included, December 31, 2014

Well, here we are. Thank you so much for tagging along with me in this. Your support through my long silence was very much appreciated. I loved writing this series, and I am sad to finish it, but it is finished. Hopefully someone else writes Fili/Sigrid now. :)


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